09/17/2026
I'm on a rant today!
“Wow. Those dogs are so well behaved.”
I hear this all the time.
Today I’m out riding bikes with Leo, Daisy, and of course Vic tagging along, and somebody says it again:
“Wow, those dogs are so well behaved.”
Then comes the inevitable:
“I wish my dog could do that.”
Or:
“Do you train kids too?” 😂
And after doing this for as long as I have, here’s where I’m at:
Stop wishing. Stop making excuses. Train your damn dog.
Yeah, these dogs are well behaved.
You know why?
Because I expect them to be.
Because when I teach something, I enforce it.
Because when I ask a dog to do something, I follow through.
Because NO doesn’t mean maybe.
And a command doesn’t mean:
“Do this if you’re not too distracted and you happen to feel like it right now.”
Dog training has been made so unbelievably complicated that people have forgotten basic common sense.
Here it is:
Teach what you want.
Stop what you don’t want.
Follow through.
That’s dog training.
Your dog doesn’t need a psychology degree.
It needs clarity.
Dogs chase.
They hunt.
They dig.
They chew s**t up.
They steal food.
They rush doors.
They jump on people.
They fight.
They follow impulses.
They’re dogs.
A mentor told me years ago:
“Dogs are entrepreneurs. If you don’t give them a job, they’ll create their own.”
And that might be one of the truest things I’ve ever heard.
Because your dog is learning something every single day.
The question is:
What are YOU teaching it?
If your dog rushes the door 500 times and you allow it, you taught him to rush the door.
If your dog drags you toward every dog it sees and eventually you let him get there, congratulations—you taught him pulling works.
If your dog jumps all over people and everybody laughs and pets him anyway, you taught him jumping works.
If you say “come” 14 times while your dog ignores you and then you eventually give up…
You just taught your dog that “come” means absolutely nothing.
Then six months later:
“My dog is stubborn.”
“My dog just doesn’t listen.”
“He’s really independent.”
“She’s reactive.”
“He just gets too excited.”
“She really loves people.”
“He’s still a puppy.”
“He’s never liked doing that.”
At some point, the excuses have to stop.
Now, some dogs ARE harder than others.
Some dogs have more drive.
Some have more fear.
Some have stronger genetics.
Some have legitimate behavioral issues that require more skill, more patience and more work.
I’m not pretending every dog is the same.
But none of that changes the fact that allowing a behavior over and over again teaches the dog that behavior works.
At some point, stop making excuses and start training the dog standing in front of you.
And yeah…
It’s the same s**t with kids.
If I let my kid stay up until 2 a.m., eat candy for every meal, ignore everything I say, throw rocks at cars and generally do whatever the hell he wants every day…
I don’t get to act shocked when he becomes an entitled little as***le.
I taught him that.
Boundaries matter.
Expectations matter.
Accountability matters.
And that’s one of the reasons I love sports for kids.
Wrestling. Swimming. Track. Cross-country. Tennis. Football. Baseball.
Team sports have tremendous value too.
But I especially love those individual sports because eventually it becomes you versus you.
You step onto that wrestling mat alone.
You step into that swimming lane alone.
You get on that starting line alone.
Nobody gives a s**t about your excuses.
Did you train?
Did you put in the work?
Can you handle losing?
Can you handle being tired?
Can you handle frustration?
Can you get your ass kicked, learn something, come back tomorrow and work harder?
That builds grit.
Yet somehow with dogs we’ve decided frustration is this horrible thing that should never happen.
“He’s frustrated.”
Okay?
Let him be frustrated.
Frustration is part of learning.
Sometimes frustration is simply the moment where the dog realizes:
“The thing I WANT to do isn’t working anymore. What am I supposed to do instead?”
GOOD.
Now we can teach.
But instead, people constantly move the goalposts.
Sit here.
But you don’t really have to sit there.
Don’t jump on me.
But Grandma loves it, so jump on her.
Don’t pull.
Except when I’m in a hurry and don’t feel like dealing with it.
Come.
COME.
COME!
COME HERE!
FIDO!
FIDO COME!
Screw it.
And then:
“I just don’t understand why my dog doesn’t listen.”
Really?
YOU TAUGHT HIM NOT TO.
Your dog learned that commands are suggestions.
Your dog learned that boundaries disappear if he pushes hard enough.
Your dog learned that eventually you quit.
And dogs are brilliant at figuring that s**t out.
Training isn’t always easy.
But the concept is really damn simple.
Teach what you want.
Stop what you don’t want.
Follow through.
Be consistent.
Repeat.
Stop searching for some magical training method that allows you to avoid doing the work.
Stop blaming your dog’s breed.
Stop blaming his age.
Stop blaming distractions.
Stop blaming excitement.
Stop making excuses for behavior you’ve allowed 10,000 times.
TRAIN YOUR DOG.
Those three dogs running beside my bike today aren’t there because I got lucky.
They aren’t genetically programmed to be perfect.
They aren’t robots.
They make mistakes.
Hell, Vic is five months old.
The difference?
When they make a mistake, we train through it.
We don’t make an excuse.
We don’t pretend we didn’t see it.
We don’t change the expectation because following through became inconvenient.
We work through it.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Until there’s clarity.
Then clarity becomes reliability.
And reliability?
That creates freedom.
That’s why we get to go ride bikes.
That’s why we get to hike.
That’s why we get to explore.
That’s why these dogs get to actually LIVE.
Not because there are no rules.
Because there are.
Freedom without boundaries is chaos.
Freedom built on reliability is something completely different.
So the next time you see somebody with a well-trained dog and think:
“I wish my dog could do that…”
Stop wishing.
Put in the fu***ng work.
Nobody cares about your excuses.
TRAIN HARDER.
